Chương 35: Round Two

This might be a problem. In fact—upon further consideration—this might be the worst possible problem. The dragon is airborne. Which is unfortunate, because I am not. And anyone who has consumed even the most cursory amount of fantasy media knows exactly what an unreachable mage represents. A portable death sentence. For everyone in the immediate vicinity. Yes. A very slight problem. He gives me absolutely no time to formulate a proper dramatic response to this development.

Instead, he opts for immediate, decisive violence in the form of saturation artillery. Rude. I blink. Ah. That's… not good. Dozens of fireballs bloom into existence around him, each one far larger than the ones I'd been dealing with previously. They hover for a fraction of a second, heat distorting the air around them— —and then they start firing. Not in a volley. Not in a pattern. But in a relentless stream, like a gatling gun fueled by regret and the raw, unfiltered power of questionably balanced system design.

I make the most obvious, dignified decision available. I spin on my heel and start running. Alright. Mental plan time. Step one: improvise. Step two: pray to the stars that my opponent gets overconfident. Step three: violence. Excellent. Once again, my incredible genius has produced a flawless strategy that will undoubtedly carry me to victory. Sometimes my own intelligence frightens me. My tail curls smugly— —and then the first fireballs slam into the ground behind me.

Explosions rip through the ash, shockwaves thundering through the wasteland as clouds of debris and heat chase at my heels. The ground shakes. My ears flatten instinctively as the concussive blasts stack one after another. I immediately regret not inventing fox-friendly earplugs. This is loud. Tragically, it gets even louder. The dragon starts mixing Flame Lances into the barrage, and the difference is immediate.

Each one slams into the ground with force at least an order of magnitude stronger than my thermal grenade, detonations stacking on top of each other until the wasteland starts to feel less like terrain and more like an ongoing crime scene. I keep running. Weaving. Dodging. Cutting hard angles. Occasionally triggering Dash just to stay ahead of the expanding wall of explosions and avoid becoming a lightly carbonized smear on the ground. I don't manage to dodge everything.

A few fireballs slip past my movement and force me to react, blade flashing as I cut them apart mid-flight. Unfortunately, that trick is far less effective now. Each fireball is nearly as potent as the Flame Lances he was casually throwing around in humanoid form. Splitting them only turns one big problem into two slightly smaller ones, both of which still explode. Each impact chips away at my health. And thanks to Death Corruption, those losses are permanent. I grit my teeth.

In theory, he should be suffering the same attrition. His mana ought to be hemorrhaging just as steadily as my health. In practice, endurance battles are not my specialty, and at this rate I will be well-done long before he runs out of resources. Especially since my starfire shell has gone from "useful tool" to "mandatory life support." It doesn't help that he's adapting.

The fireballs start landing ahead of me instead of behind, explosions herding my movement, cutting off escape routes, forcing tighter and tighter paths through the ash. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. He's learning. And there's nothing I can do about it out here, in this flat, featureless wasteland where speed is my only advantage and even that is being boxed in. So, naturally, I stop.

My boots slam into the ground as I bleed speed in a screaming spray of cinders, kicking up a violent cloud of ash. The sudden change throws off his aim completely, fireballs crashing uselessly into the space I would have occupied a heartbeat earlier. My muscles and tendons scream in protest at pivoting at nearly supersonic speed. I ignore them. New target. The poorly designed castle. The only problem? Getting there requires charging straight at the dragon.

Which is deeply unfortunate, because the laws of physics are very clear on this matter: the less distance a projectile has to travel, the less time I have to avoid it—much like a violently inebriated homeless man attempting to evade the tender attentions of a local police officer. As I close the gap, the bombardment thickens. Explosions start overlapping, shockwaves stacking until the air itself feels hostile.

A few blasts detonate close enough that my starfire shell flares in protest, heat crawling along my skin in sharp, unpleasant waves. I temporarily abandon my newest hobby—slicing spells in half—and start Astral Stepping through the worst of it instead, conserving speed and momentum at the cost of stamina. I slip beneath him in a burst of starlight, right into the blind spot where he can't possibly hit—"Flame Torrent!" Of course.

I react instantly, spamming Dash like my life depends on it—which it very much does—watching a distressing chunk of my stamina evaporate as I barely clear the forming inferno. The flaming tornado erupts from the ground upward, because why would it originate from the dragon's position like a sensible spell? The edge of the flames grazes my tail, heat flaring painfully— —and then stops. Apparently even fire has drawn the line at damaging my starborn fur. It hurts. I ignore it. I risk a glance back while I run.

Then I nod to myself. That torrent is much bigger than before. His transformation has very clearly juiced his magic stats to an absurd degree. I can barely make out his silhouette inside the towering pillar of flame, wings spread wide amid the falling embers. For a very brief moment, I consider whether challenging a True Dragon fourteen levels above me might have been a poor life choice. Then I immediately file that thought into the mental folder labeled Garbage Chute.

I am, after all, the most perfect and beautiful creature on this planet, and entertaining the possibility that I made a mistake would be an unforgivable slight against my dignity. I attempt a smug hair flick mid-Dash. It does not work. Then the torrent collapses outward in an explosion of embers and heat, and the dragon emerges from the inferno, wings fully extended. My ears perk despite myself. … I'll admit it. That was pretty cool.

He immediately resumes flying toward me, fireballs already forming with zero regard for my appreciation. Rude. Worse, I realize something else almost immediately. He's faster than me now. Odds are very high that his true form—or whatever nonsense label the System is using—comes with a disrespectful stat boost across the board. Considering he already had more total points than me, this development qualifies as a mild inconvenience. One that comes with full-body burns as a complimentary feature.

My HP keeps ticking down as the wall looms closer. A wall that is, very rudely, far too tall for me to clear in a single jump—even with gravity reduced by half. Which means it's time for Step One: Improvise. I switch my sword to my offhand and let starlight pool into my right palm. It condenses rapidly, stretching and sharpening until it forms a crude, harpoon-like construct—more aggressive suggestion than proper weapon. I've never thrown a spear before. But really, how hard can it be?

It's not like my target is moving. After what feels like several minutes—but is actually only a few seconds, courtesy of the absurd speeds involved—I reach the base of the wall. My left foot plants. My shoulders twist. My arm draws back. Then I hurl the harpoon at the stone just as I Astral Step sideways to avoid another incoming Flame Lance. The construct hits halfway up the wall with a solid, deeply satisfying crunch, burying itself nearly a foot into the masonry. Good enough. I jump.

The instant my right foot hits the embedded harpoon, I jump again—pushing off just as a fireball detonates where I'd been a heartbeat earlier, shattering stone and violently dislodging my improvised foothold. Having fulfilled its noble, temporary purpose, the harpoon drops to the ground and is immediately forgotten. I grab the edge of the wall, crest it with a completely unnecessary flip, and don't even pause.

Sword back into my dominant hand, momentum preserved, I launch myself off the far side and drop into the ruined city below. Above me, the dragon sails cleanly over the wall and continues his bombardment without missing a beat. Because of course a stone wall wouldn't stop a flying menace powered by spite, fire, and terrible design philosophy. As I fall, I take in the soon-to-be violent renovation project unfolding beneath me.

My mind kicks into overdrive—streets slotting into place, sightlines mapped, blind corners flagged, elevation changes noted. In the span of a heartbeat, the ruined city becomes a rough mental grid, every alley and open stretch filed away for later abuse. The dragon tries to snipe me midair with a few well-aimed fireballs. I immediately invert my gravity, making myself heavier instead of lighter. The shots sail cleanly over my head, useless. Just before impact, I flip it back.

My speed, unfortunately, does not get the memo. The landing is less elegant descent and more squirrel impacts the ground at terminal velocity, realizes it is not invincible, and desperately scrambles upright while every bone files a formal complaint. It still works. I glance back just long enough to lock the dragon in my sight, then immediately veer off the main street and dive into a narrow alley. A crude illusion of me continues straight ahead, sprinting bravely toward its doom.

The dragon buys it for about a second and a half before vaporizing the decoy with extreme prejudice. That second and a half is plenty. I weave through backstreets and collapsed corridors, past various monster corpses, cutting sharp turns and doubling back before finally slipping into the shadow of a half-collapsed church. I don't hesitate.

An uncommon stamina potion and a health potion come out of spatial storage and disappear down my throat in quick succession, consumed with the solemn intensity of a gamer rage-chugging Mountain Dew after a truly catastrophic series of events that led to a game over. I pull up my status. Health: almost full. Stamina: still missing about a thousand. Tragic. Somewhere in the distance, my forest fire claims enough unlucky lives to push me over the edge. Another level.

I immediately dump every free point straight into Dexterity. As much as I want the Perception special skill, I can't reach it in one level—and right now, speed is survival. Before moving again, I form another starlight construct. This one's a dagger. I take my time with it, shaping the edge carefully, then layering on an obscene amount of runes—energy amplification patterns, fragments borrowed from half a dozen memorized structures, anything that looks even vaguely helpful.

The System very politely tries to guide me toward something stable. I ignore it. Ten seconds later, the blade finishes forming: a mess of glowing enhancements, zero end or trigger runes, and nothing but gate runes forcibly capping every pattern like duct tape over a bomb. I toss it into spatial storage and peek around the corner. The dragon is circling the air where my illusory clone lived and died, clearly annoyed. More importantly— He's flying low.

Low enough that a jump from the nearby rooftops would put him within reach. My tail sways with unrestrained anticipation. Time to set up step two.